a writer wanders

Longterm (a poem)

I’m not sure I’ve been anywhere I’m destined to remain.
I know I like highways, riding around in cars, windows
down, hair blowing, I can’t help but fall in love at every turn.
Though I’m not sure I’ve met anyone I will know a year from now.

I know whales breaking from broken ocean, salt marsh stretching on for miles, swells
of land disappearing into distance, green and gold, fields of sunflowers in saskatchewan,
trees like old gods and trees like the dead, trees I’ve cried for, remembering.
Sometimes there’s so much sand that I panic, recurring nightmares of counting to infinity,
cities— dark, even in the hot sun, each one the same as the last, and small towns
I remember each detail, though their names have packed up and left.

I must be an infinite power source, bright flash of light, connecting to others in fleeting
trust and kept promises— love, maybe. Paths crossing, undetectable to stationary eyes.
I miss the taste of “I love you” in my mouth. I miss the feeling of it against my lips, but how can I find my people when we all move so fast, passing like semis in the night?

Same experience, so many places.
What is it about somewhere that can make you return?

I have impossible amounts of love to fit in one backpack. I show up laden, bursting
in through doors left cracked ajar— “Will you take some for me?” In pieces, a mess
on the clearance rack, deteriorating in half lives that last a millennia. I can’t seem to get rid
of all this shit, all this red hot feeling, all these stories without endings. But somebody needs
to get these things where they’re going, and I don’t see anyone else walking this highway.

Wherever I am, I miss everywhere (everyone) else.

After a dry spell that lasted more than a year and a half, I’m writing poetry again and I’m so excited. I’ve been at it for the past couple months, but this is the first one I can share without violating anyone’s privacy. I hope that this continues and that I can share a great many more travel poems on this blog in the future. Big hug for Morgan Ross for the best late-night facebook feedback I’ve ever been given, making this thing suck a lot less.